Stars' names used in $3.9m scam, court told

On the surface, it seemed as if Alexis Quinlin's biggest fault was name dropping. The New York-based entrepreneur could not resist telling potential investors in his firm how he had partied with Madonna and done deals with Mick Jagger, Richard Branson and Eric Clapton, or how he would soon be collaborating with Quentin Tarantino on the next James Bond film.

Parts of his lifestyle were real: he did eat at Manhattan's finest restaurants, and book rooms in its top hotels. The problem, according to the New York district attorney's office, is that he paid with money fraudulently obtained from 22 victims who had fallen for his celebrity fantasies.

Mr Quinlin, a French citizen who sometimes pretended to be the prominent fashion photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, is accused of scamming more than $3.9m (£2.07m) over a seven-year period. Prosecutors say he constructed a Ponzi scheme, whereby he claimed that figures such as Mr Branson and John Travolta had already invested in his businesses, exporting DVD players and flat-screen televisions to Europe. He would allegedly then pay off earlier investors with money from subsequent investors, giving the appearance of a bona fide operation.

"The sale of goods never occurred and the 'companies' enabled Quinlin to generate cash flow to perpetuate the scheme," the district attorney's indictment says. The 46-year-old could face up to 15 years in jail if found guilty on all charges of grand larceny, fraud, criminal impersonation and forgery.

"He didn't assume Mondino's identity superficially - he did intense research," Paula Patrice, a New York model who knew Mr Quinlin, told the Guardian. "Nobody really knows what Mondino looks like - he's never photographed, and even his book shows him with a ski cap over his head." Ms Patrice said she never gave Mr Quinlin money, though he often invited her to participate in his purported lifestyle. "I just wonder now, what would he do if I had accepted his invitation to come to the Rolling Stones party?"

To bolster his sales pitch, Mr Quinlin allegedly produced contracts on which he had forged the signatures of Travolta and Jodie Foster. "And he would give money back quickly, unexpectedly, so you wouldn't suspect anything, so you wanted to give even more money," one victim told the New York Post. After one model told him she had cancer and might not be financially stable in the future, he convinced her to give him $100,000.

"He once told me he went to Madonna's wedding, and he was the only photographer allowed there," said Debbie Korb, an estate agent for Sotheby's. Mr Quinlin tried but failed to get her to invest in his scheme, she told the Post.

But Mr Quinlin's televisions - purportedly being sold to European hotels - were a fiction, prosecutors say. Instead, he lived in luxury and paid off debts incurred in his job as president of Offline Releasing, a small film distribution company.